


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by bunnyangel



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Cognitive Dissonance, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Minor Violence, Shock, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29312730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnyangel/pseuds/bunnyangel
Summary: Eddie is no longer here.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37
Collections: Flowers For Your Grave





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> [Marcia Elena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marciaelena/pseuds/Marcia%20Elena) is the _best_ , btw. Thanks always for looking over my junk.

The door is wide open, but the two men on the ground don't seem to hear the screaming that floats through it.

They sit in the silence, in the seconds between heartbeats.

A tiny body lays between them, limbs jumbled, tangled and twisted, fingers stretched out and grasping. A low, tiny moan emerges from that torn throat, chilling in both its familiarity and unfamiliarity. It drags itself slowly forward.

Buck stares, unable to do more than try and catch the breath that _he stole from Isabel_ , but Eddie, Eddie is gone. Those wide, wide eyes are fixed on his son, but Eddie is no longer here.

He has to get up. He has to get up because there are things that _took_ Isabel and Pepa, that _took_ Christopher and he can't let them take Eddie, too.

His hands are weak. His hands are shaking as he tries to push to his feet and fails and instead crawls towards the thing that used to be the child he loved more than anyone or anything in the world. He pushes down the rising nausea because they can't leave him. They can't.

He reaches out and prepares to put down the _thing_ that used to be Christopher Diaz.

"No!" Eddie suddenly comes to life and tackles Buck. The three of them bowl over, but Eddie's already off of him before Buck even gets up, cradling the _thing_ in his arms.

Eddie stares down at it, the whites of his eyes rimmed red with tears running unnoticed down his face. Soft apologies and fervent assurances spill from cracked lips and that suddenly too exposed neck is bent entirely too damn close to those tiny clacking teeth that will ever only again be bared in hunger.

"Eddie! Eddie, stop!" He stops that tiny, snarling mouth from latching onto bare skin and with just a twist--less than a pound of pressure and even less thought--he snaps that tiny little neck. The body goes limp immediately, and the anguished, inhuman howl Eddie makes raises the hair on his arms.

"You killed him!" Eddie snarls. "You killed him!" He lunges forward, squashing the still body between them. His fingers grip tight in Buck's shirt, shaking him with every accusation. Buck does nothing to stop him. His head is bowed and his vision is entirely full of his fingers still wrapped around that bloody little neck.

"He's gone, Eddie," Buck says flatly, jaw working to keep the tremble at bay. He carefully uncurls shaking fingers and lets his hand drop, forcing himself to look up and face the consequences of his actions. "He's gone. I'm sorry."

But Eddie's already gone again, lost somewhere behind his eyes. He's rocking Christopher's body again, cradling his head up to his temple and whispering into matted brown hair.

He watches and just concentrates on sucking breath into his choked lungs; lets this new nightmare reality sink in, where Eddie's family has just been obliterated in less than a minute.

And then he gets up, because he has to.

He closes the front door and locks it. The screaming chaos outside muffles.

He draws the curtains shut.

The cooling bodies of Isabel and Pepa Diaz are still crumpled on the ground where they fell--finally, truly dead. He gently transports them to the backyard where he silently promises them a proper burial as soon as he can.

"Hey, Eddie," he says gently. Neither his voice nor his gentle touch pulls Eddie out of his silent stupor. The grip on that increasingly gray skin just grows tighter and tighter.

Finally, he bites his lip and says with only a slightly uneven voice, "I think Christopher's pretty tired and c-cold. We should put him to bed."

And somehow, that works. Eddie blinks for what seems like the first time in forever and rises slowly to his feet. He puts Christopher to bed like any other night, tucking him in and placing a kiss on his forehead.

Eyes burning but still dry, he clears his throat as quietly as possible and approaches the bed, touching Eddie gently on the elbow.

"Let's let him sleep," he says thickly. "We don't want to wake him up. You're tired, aren't you? We just got off a long shift. Let's get you to bed."

A slow blink of those long lashes as he holds his breath, and then a slow nod. He leads a terrifyingly docile Eddie to bed and wraps him up tightly in the blanket. He places a long, trembling kiss to that clammy forehead. Pulling away when it threatens to turn into a sob, he makes sure there are no weapons in the near vicinity and then retreats to the hallway.

The soft click of the door behind him is like a switch. He staggers sideways, but doesn't quite make it to the wall, sliding haphazardly to the ground, hands clapped over his mouth as he freaks the fuck out.

He killed Christopher.

He _killed_ Christopher.

He gags, scrambling to his feet and lurching for the bathroom. The bile burns as he vomits into the toilet. Tears and snot stream unchecked and he gasps and gasps but there's no air. He doesn't deserve air. He should have fucking died back there.

_He killed Christopher_.

He's responsible for Eddie losing his family. He doesn't deserve to live.

A wretched moan sounds deep in his throat and he grips the cold porcelain tighter and tries to remember how to breathe, how to pick up the pieces of his life now that it’s been destroyed by his own two hands.

The sky is nearly dark by the time he lifts his head. Everything feels dull, muffled, and his limbs feel almost too heavy. Scrubbing his hands until they're bright red with the heat of the water is the only thing that really registers.

He trudges quietly back to Eddie's room and watches Eddie breathe from the doorway, aware that the man underneath those covers might not be there anymore because his _best friend_ has just murdered his _family._

It takes him most of the night to dig three separate graves in the far corner of Eddie's backyard. Halfway through, a slam against the fence has him almost tumbling into one.

He doesn't know if it's the noise, or if they smell him or see him or what, but one of _them_ has come investigating. His fingers are tight around the handle of the shovel and he's frozen; a sick rage and a visceral terror coursing through him that burns out the haze of grief for a single, blinding moment.

When a second set of hands starts to slam against the fence, and then a third, and the moaning grows into a pitched frenzy, he retreats inside.

He spends the rest of the night in wary vigilance, silently patrolling the confines of Eddie's home and even giving into the urge to check on the man himself once or twice.

He startles awake the next day in a flurry of panic, shooting off the couch and tripping down the hall to find Eddie still curled up in the darkness of his bedroom.

Slumping on the floor in sheer relief, he watches the steady rise and fall of that blanket.

What little sleep he got does bring some clarity, some calm. Logically, he knows that he did the right thing. Whatever had taken Pepa down with "the flu" those last few days had turned her into something that had attacked her own mother.

He weeps, because Isabel had fought, and she had taken down her own daughter with what looked like little to no compunction. The bloody kitchen knife still lying on the ground is testament to her struggle, but she'd had no chance. No chance whatsoever, because whatever she had turned into after had already, in turn, stolen Christopher by the time they stepped through the front door.

He knows all this, rationally, but he still avoids the closed door at the end of the hall for now, still shies away from the memories of his duffel bag colliding again and again against dark and gray curls, of his fingers wrapped around a pale bloody throat, and focuses on his set task.

He twitches the curtain aside just the slightest and peers intently into the backyard. Nothing seems to have gotten through. The back door opens silently and he waits, listening. It's a heavy silence outside; the normal cheerful bird chatter and speeding cars have ceased.

Warily, he steps out onto the porch, shovel held defensively in front of him.

He buries Pepa and Isabel and Christopher, and what feels like a piece of himself, on a blazing, blistering summer day before retreating inside and curling on the floor just inside the door.

He doesn't move from there for the longest time.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this _does_ have at least another chapter written already in Buck's ongoing, horrible adventure to keep catatonic Eddie alive. It has a huge gap in between, though, so it may or may not actually be finished/continued one day. I just wanted to get out what I felt could stand alone.


End file.
